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Physical and Cultural Changes Leading to Language

The mysteries of how, when, and why language began have
befuddled scientists and laymen alike for centuries. This question has not been
fully answered even to this day, but scientists’ findings in the last few decades
have led to the discovery of some likely starting points. Fossil evidence
indicates that there were several physical and cultural changes from primitive
Australopithecines to Homo sapiens
that sparked the creation of human language. These changes included bipedalism,
larynx-lowering, encephalization, and the creation of tools and art.

The Australopithecus anamensis, which
scientists believe originated 4.2 million years ago, is considered by most scientists
to be a definite ancestor to humans. Its brain was much like its ancestors’ in
its simplicity, and there is no evidence of any anamensis language, tools, or culture. The key trait distinguishing
it from earlier primates is its ability to walk upright. Scientists infer this
from the structure of the anamensis’
bones, which suggest that they had a more vertical body position than their
ancestors. One particularly strong indication of Australopithecines’ ability to
walk upright is the shift of the skull’s spinal cord entry hole from the back
of primate’s skulls to the front. This hole, called the foramen magnum,
indicates the angle at which primates held their heads. The foramen magnum’s
shift toward the center of the skull enabled anamensis primates to hold their heads upright instead of leaning
forward, which proves they spent a great deal of time standing vertically.

Although it
may seem at first that walking on two legs should have nothing to do with
communication, bipedalism may have been a necessary condition for language. At
the very least, it was beneficial. This is evident for several reasons. One is
used by scientists who theorize that language began as a vocabulary of hand
gestures instead of speech. These people point to the fact that bipedalism
freed primates from using their hands to walk. Because hands were not necessary
for travel, primates could use their hands to create signals.

Other
scientists, however, assert the opposite belief: language derived from speech
became a possibility once primates practiced bipedalism. They point to the
lowering of the larynx due to walking upright. Having a lowered larynx enables
the production of a wider range of sounds. Several in the field, however, look
upon this development with some skepticism. It is true that in order to talk, Homo sapiens are essentially required to
have a lowered larynx. Yet this trait is clearly not the only contributor to
speech. For example, some deer can lower their larynxes, but they obviously
cannot speak. Instead, they do so for a completely different reason: the
advantage of sounding like a larger animal by virtue of making lower pitched
sounds. Thus, while remaining an important factor, the lowered larynx is not
nearly the sole reason for speech.

The main
change from Australopithecines to modern humans that both hand gesture and
speech theorists can point to is encephalization. In other words, primates’
brains expansion is considered to be the key to language. Without this,
primates would have simply not been intelligent enough to rise above other
animals and create language as well as culture. Before encephalization,
primates had proportionally larger occipital and olfactory areas. As their
brain size increased, however, primates began to have larger frontal and parietal
lobes. Species in the genus Homo went
from specializing in sight and smelling to higher-order thinking. Without
larger frontal and parietal lobes, primates would have no area to store, extract,
or create vocabulary and syntax.

Once their
brains developed further, primates were able to create cultural artifacts. These
artifacts include Homo habilis’ tools
of the Oldowan tradition, which lasted from 2.5 mya to 1.5 mya. These
first-ever primitive tools were all made of stone and included pebble tools,
choppers, and scrapers. One might doubt the significance of a few rocks found a
few meter’s beneath the earth’s surface. The rocks, he or she might reason,
might have merely rolled down a hill and cracked upon striking a boulder. Yet
this is not the case. Scientists can prove based on the slant and polished
appearance of the rock fractures that primates intentionally shaped the rocks
into tools.

As primates
continued to evolve and have increasingly larger parietal and frontal lobes,
tools became more complex. Following the Oldowan tools were Homo ergaster’s more advanced Acheulean
tools, which were in use sometime between 2.2 and 1.5 million years BP. These
included hand axes, knives and scrapers. These tools indicate the evidence of a
few firsts in primate history: the beginnings of systematic hunting, the use of
home bases, and the discovery of fire. All of these pieces of evidence point to
the existence of culture and at least some form of rudimentary protolanguage,
which most likely included only a small vocabulary and no syntax. Topics of
conversation probably included only the most important subjects concerning
survival, including instructions on how to make fires or making plans to hunt
in a certain area.

From
300k-50k BP, H. heidelbergensis and H. antecessor took part in the
Mousterian tradition.This included not
only more complicated composite tools, but also ritual burials and art. The
first evidence of art comes in the form of red ochre, dated to 77 kya in
southern Africa. Due to the complexity of Mousterian
cultural artifacts, scientists believe that by this time H. heidelbergensis had evolved a clearly reorganized brain as well
as genuine language capabilities surpassing those of mere protolanguage. By 200
kya, the earliest form of cro-magnon Homo
sapiens existed and had many different elaborate cultures. These primitive
humans painted stories on cave walls and engraved elephant tusks. In addition,
modern humans invented the first forms of agriculture by 10 kya.

Through the
study of fossilized remains, scientists can form hypotheses regarding the
origins of human language. These educated guesses are put to the test each time
an archaeologist recovers a fossil. Scientists hope to someday pinpoint the
exact dates of each cultural and physical development of primates and to know
for sure how and when language began, but until then they will continue to
discover, debate, and revise their hypotheses.